SAN FRANCISCO -- Watermelon just got hotter. Sundia Corp., the only mass- producer of watermelon juice, announced that its line of 100 percent juices has been reformulated to better capture the essence of summer's more popular and more nutritious fruit.

Beginning the second week in April, the new and improved juices will begin making their way onto refrigerated shelves in the produce sections of grocery stores nationwide.

Salinas, CA-based grower-shipper Church Bros. LLC and its processing entity True Leaf Farms have acquired Pride of San Juan's processing facility in San Juan Bautista, CA.

THORNTON, CO -- A 17-year-old high school junior was awarded top honors and $1,000 cash at a March 19 student chefs' cookoff sponsored by the Colorado Potato Administrative Committee.

Six student chefs were chosen from an original field of 50 to compete in the cookoff. Heather Crosby, a student at Academy of Charter Schools in the Denver metro area city of Westminster, CO, was chosen by judges for her mashed potato doughnuts, which included Colorado russets as a primary ingredient.

Oxnard, CA-based Boskovich Farms has filed a libel lawsuit against Taco Bell Corp. alleging that Taco Bell continued to link its green onions to the December E. coli outbreak that sickened more than 70 people in the Northeast, despite knowing the produce was not contaminated.

The lawsuit was filed the week of March 19 in Orange County Superior Court. Taco Bell Corp. is based in Irvine, CA.

Nothing quite like the light brown apple moth has ever been found in California before, nor was its arrival from other countries where it is native or established considered likely, so the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the California Department of Food & Agriculture are up against a steep learning curve in dealing with recent finds of the insect in the San Francisco Bay area.

Bruce Knight, undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, was the keynote speaker at the annual membership meeting luncheon of the California Grape & Tree Fruit League, held Monday, March 26, at Disney's Grand California Hotel in Anaheim, CA.